The Bothersome Man (Den Brysomme Mannen) - film review
An ancient Mercedes bus pulls up at an isolated filling station located in a sub-arctic wasteland. An unkempt traveller (Andreas) gets off just as the proprietor of the filling station puts up a welcome banner to greet his visitor. Signalling the Kafkaesque tale that is about to unfold, the proprietor almost immediately takes down the banner, explaining to Andreas that it was intended only for him.
Cleaned up and dressed in a suit, Andreas is driven to an anonymous modern Scandinavian city, housed in an apartment, given an undemanding office job, and provided with a social life plus live-in girlfriend. Unlike the rest of his social circle who accept their comfortable circumstances without question, Andreas isn’t satisfied, and he rebels through a series of self-harm episodes including guillotining his fingers and throwing himself under a train - curiously, none of which does him any lasting damage.
When he encounters a kindred spirit in a bar who claims that ‘things aren’t right’ - chocolate doesn’t taste, alcohol doesn’t cause drunkeness - Andreas is drawn to find out more about this querulous character, and tracks down his subterranean abode. Here Andreas discovers a porthole to a world of warm colours, music, children, and the smell of fresh baking, but which remains tantalisingly just out of reach. His subversive activities draw the attention of the grey-suited emergency services personnel who monitor and clear up any disturbances in the orderly life of the city. Soon Andreas is bundled into the luggage hold of the old Mercedes bus and he is returned to a frozen wasteland beyond ‘civilisation’.
The film offers an allegorical reflection on the bland consumer world gradually closing in upon us, through the medium of Andreas’ struggle to retain the experience of life ‘red in tooth and claw’, and serves as a reminder that we can opt out…
Essential viewing.